The thing was decided late that evening. We would set out before dawn.
We were on our way when the sun came up and for half a day we could look back and see the trees of the oasis. I was glad when I could no longer see their shape against the skyline. For hours Zaro carried the mug, one hand underneath, the other over the top. He had filled it with water after we had all taken our final drinks and as he walked it slopped warm against his palm and little trickles escaped down the sides. When we halted at midday he had lost nearly half the quantity through spillage and evaporation and was complaining about the cramping of his arms in holding so tightly to the can. So, very carefully, sitting up under the small shade of our jackets slung over our clubs, we handed the water round and disposed of it a sip at a time.
This was the pre-oasis journey all over again, but this time we were deprived of even the scant sustenance of a few dried fish. For the first three days I thought we moved surprisingly well. On the fourth day the inescapable, strength-draining heat began quite suddenly to take its toll. Stumbles and falls became increasingly frequent, the pace slowed, speech dried up into short grunted phrases. I remember Makowski saying, ‘Hell can’t be hotter than this bloody desert.’
On the fifth day Kristina went to her knees. I turned slowly round to look at her, expecting her to get to her feet as she had done before. She remained kneeling, her fair head bowed down on her chest. She was very still. I moved towards her and Kolemenos stepped back at the same time. Before we could reach her she swayed from the hips and slumped forward, her face in the sand. We reached her at the same time and turned her on her back. She was unconscious. I opened the neck of her dress and started talking to her, gently shaking her, while Mister Smith set to with sticks and
She came to quickly. She looked at our anxious ring of faces, sat up, smiled through split lips and said, ‘I feel better now. I must have fallen over — I don’t know how it happened.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I consoled her. ‘We’ll rest here a while and then you’ll be all right again.’
She leaned forward and lightly patted the back of my hand. ‘I won’t fall down again.’
We sat there a while. Kristina reached down to scratch her ankle and my eyes idly followed the hand. The ankle was swollen so that the skin pressed outward against the narrow-fitting ends of her padded trousers.
‘Has anything bitten you, Kristina?’
‘No, Slav. Why?’
‘Your leg looks swollen.’
She pulled up the trouser leg and looked, turning her foot about as she did so. ‘I hadn’t noticed it before,’ she said.
We struggled on for a couple more hours. She seemed to be refreshed. Then she fell again and this time her knees buckled and her face hit the sand in almost one movement without even the action of putting her arms out to break the fall.
We turned her over again and wiped away the sand which had been forced into her nose and mouth. We put up the shelter. She lay with eyes closed, breathing in harsh gasps through her mouth. I looked at her ankles and they were a pitiful sight. Both were badly discoloured and so swollen that it seemed they would burst the restricting bottoms of the trousers. I took out my knife and slit the cloth upwards. The skin appeared to be distended by water right up to the knees. I touched the swelling and the mark of my fingers remained for some seconds.
Kristina was unconscious for an hour while we tried to stifle our gnawing anxiety with banalities like, ‘It must be just a touch of sunstroke.’ I had a feeling like lead in the pit of my stomach. I was frightened.
She was quite cheerful when she came round. ‘I am becoming a nuisance,’ she said. ‘What can be the matter with me?’ We fussed around her.
Kristina got to her feet. ‘Come on. We are wasting time.’
I walked alongside her. She stopped suddenly and glanced down at her legs, her attention attracted by the flapping of slit trousers about her legs.
‘My legs are getting quite thick, Slav.’
‘Do they hurt you, Kristina?’
‘No, not at all. They must be swelling because I have walked so far.’
The time was afternoon on the fifth day. She walked on for hours without more than an occasional small stumble and was still keeping up with Kolemenos and I when the sun had gone and we stopped for the night. Sitting there among us she stole frequent looks at her legs. She said nothing and we affected not to notice.
It was a disturbed night. All except Kolemenos seemed too weary and worried for sleep, Kristina lay still but I sensed she remained awake. I chewed on the pebble in my mouth. My teeth ached, my gums were enlarged and tender. Thoughts of flowing water constantly invaded my mind. I had clear pictures of the sampans I had seen on those northern rivers. I had little fits of shivering that made me stand up and walk around. My head felt constricted. I ached from head to foot.
For the first two hours of the sixth day the air was cool and walking was as pleasant as ever it can be in the desert. But soon the sun began to blaze at us out of a sky empty of clouds.
I took Kristina’s elbow. ‘Can you keep going in this?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
Five minutes later she had folded up and was out, face down in the sand. Again we ministered to her and waited for her to open her eyes. She appeared to be breathing quite normally, like a tired child.
I stood a few steps away from her and the others came over to me. ‘She is very swollen,’ I said. ‘Do any of you know what that means?’ Nobody knew the symptoms. We went back to her and waited. I flapped my cap over her face to make some air.
She smiled at us. ‘I am being a trouble again.’ We shook our heads. ‘I am afraid you had better leave me this time.’
We all broke into protest at once. Kolemenos dropped down on his knees beside her. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t be a silly little girl. We shall never leave you.’ She lay there for another half-an-hour and when she tried to force herself up on her elbows she fell back again.
I spoke to Kolemenos. ‘We must give her a hand.’ We lifted her to her feet. ‘I can walk if you stay near me,’ she said.
Amazingly she walked, Kolemenos and I lightly holding her elbows. After a quarter of a mile we felt her start to fall forward. We steadied her and she went on again. She pulled herself erect and there was not a sound of distress, not a whimper. The next time she slumped forward we could not hold her. She had played herself utterly out and even the gallant will in that frail body could not produce another torturing effort. We were all in a bunch around her as the sun climbed up over our heads. Kolemenos and I each put an arm about her and, half-carrying, half-dragging her, set off again. A mile or so of that and I had no reserve of strength to give her. We stopped and I bent double fighting for breath.
‘Stick beside me, Slav,’ said Kolemenos. ‘I am going to carry her.’ And he lifted her into his arms, swayed for a moment as he adjusted himself to the weight, and staggered off. He carried her for fully two hundred yards and I was there to ease her down when he paused for a rest.
‘Please leave me, Anastazi,’ she begged. ‘You are wasting your strength.’ He looked at her but could not bring himself to speak.
We made a shelter there and stayed for perhaps three hours through the worst heat of the day. She lay still — I do not think she could move. The ugly swelling was past the knees and heavy with water. Kolemenos was flat on his back, restoring his strength. He knew what he was going to do.
The sun began to decline. Kolemenos bent down and swung her into his arms and trudged off. I stayed with him and the rest were all about us. He covered fully a quarter of a mile before he put her down that first time. He picked her up again and walked, her head pillowed on his great shoulder. I can never in my life see anything so magnificent as the blond-bearded giant Kolemenos carrying Kristina, hour after hour, towards darkness of that awful sixth day. His ordeal lasted some four hours. Then she touched his cheek.
‘Put me on the ground, Anastazi. Just lay me down on the ground.’
I took her weight from him and together we eased her down. We gathered round her. A wisp of a smile hovered about the corners of her mouth. She looked very steadily at each one of us in turn and I thought she was going to speak. Her eyes were clear and very blue. There was a great tranquillity about her. She closed her eyes.
‘She must be very tired,’ said Sergeant Paluchowicz. ‘The poor, tired little girl.’
